Minnesota bans free online education, caves to Internet pressure

October 21, 2012

Minnesota’s Office of Higher Education was forced by public pressure Friday to cancel its bizarre bureaucratic decision to prohibit free online college courses offered through Coursera and other websites, Slate reported Friday.

Comments (21)

Big government supports Big Unions. The teacher’s union is a corrupting influence on the Democratic Party. Similarlily it was Democrats who were the most ardent supporters of SOPA. The Democrats must cut their tie to big labor that does not have the public interest in mind.

Absurd, it had nothing to do with unions, or democrats, or even President Obama–shocking I know, since to you he’s actively responsible for all the evil in the world, while simultaneously being completely ineffective and incompetent.

This was a carryover from an old pre-Internet statute that had to do with accreditation of educational institutions. But please, feel free to keep ranting about those evil unions.

I believe unions had their time when they were useful; when there was no government regulation or oversight to ensure proper, safe working conditions, but these days they don’t seem to serve as much more than a bad employee protection agency and money funnel for union higher-ups. I’d appreciate some recent examples showing me how I’m wrong. Thanks.

Obviously your judgment has been clouded by political dogma. I’m not a Obama supporter, but your statement doesn’t give credit where it is due. It’s a shame that political ideology, make you see things in such a slanted way.

Political dogma has nothing to do with it. He is an egomaniac. Listen to his speeches. They are loaded with “I” when something good happens and with “they/someone else/etc.” when something doesn’t go right. He is right there to take credit for anything good and pass the buck when things aren’t good. I do not recall in the past 4 years where he has ever taken the blame for anything.

Not Capable of doing anything? Please give credit where credit is due..

Id say Drone striking women children and anyone else with hellfire missiles if they congregate in groups in many tribal areas of Pakistan is something. And keeping Gitmo open with rotting prisoners who are already cleared as being innocent. He had a big hand in making Libya a living hell…Somolia…etc. Shall I go on???….i could….

I hate govt interference and regulation as much as the next guy, but I’m also just a little bit wary of anything goes. What’s to stop some wacko from setting up free “educational” sites with his own curriculum, possibly subversive, or twisted, or whatever. Is the Internet self-regulating enough to keep out the wierdos?

I think the best solution is openness and skepticism, not regulation. Google and Twitter are your friends. Of course, when people are in the habit of looking to big-daddy/mommy government to tell them what to do, it will take time for them to grow a spine of their own.

No, the internet is not able to guarantee nothing subversive occurs, nor should it. Geez, there are no guarantees in life, why should the internet be any different? Freedom means tolerating extremes. Who would you propose do the verification, identify and removal of “wackco sites”? You? Me? Some wacko?

Why not? Unlike the government, private industries, by which I mean those who do not have influence in government, must convince people to do business with them. That being the case, do you really think people will patronize companies run by people who behave badly? Of course not. What you do not have faith in is people’s ability to screen out the whackos and make rational decisions. Interestingly enough, leaving people to their own devices will make them more rational and question things more. Unlike now, where people assume someone else like the government is taking care of the problem, people will be forced to do due diligence in whatever they do to make sure things are legitimate. This would be the worst of all possible worlds for scammers and con artists.

you havent seen the currculum lately at public schools have you? sick, twisted, failing, dumbed down, subversive. thats them in a nut shell. Government is not the solution, gov is the problem in the way of our emergent ground up evolving solutions. Politics and thier cronies time is coming to an end. stop thinking linearly and start thinking non-linearly. It isnt a fight between right and left it is one of up or down, dynamism vs stasis.